Objectives

The central objective of this book is to make the Cisco IOS software easy to configure, operate , and maintain for novice users. The IOS documentation that comes with each Cisco product covers multiple CD-ROMs and offers a comprehensive look at each command, with all the relevant options. The documentation often intimidates and confuses people when they are trying to configure a Cisco product for a basic internetwork.

This book is intended to serve as a supportive, more focused partner to the available documentation by covering the commonly used IOS commands and the most popular options. Through the use of copious examples, illustrations, and Cisco IOS software configuration output, we explain the use of the IOS for a variety of users and internetworking configurations. An example internetwork for a fictitious company, Zoom Integrated Products (ZIP), is a context throughout the book to help illustrate concepts. As we introduce configuration commands and strategies, we also implement them for the specific devices and topology of the ZIP network.